“Don’t be frightened at anything you see,” said Christy. “What you don’t see is much more alarming.”
The first aspect of things was not frightening. Bertram found himself in a great and splendid hall, panelled in richly carved oak, with gilded decorations. Beyond was a wide flight of stairs, leading up to a corridor hung with tapestries. It was at the corner of the corridor that he had his first shock. From behind a curtain, or through some door which he had not seen, six figures appeared in single file, utterly silent. They looked like Chinese mandarins in wonderful robes of cloth of gold. Their pig-tails swung as they passed.
Christy turned round and winked at Bertram, and then led the way through a noble salon, all gilt and brocade, in the Louis Quinze style. Round the walls were portraits of men and women of the old régime, in white wigs and flowered silks. Immense candelabra, like those at Versailles, were suspended from a ceiling painted with cherubs and naked goddesses.
At the farthest door another unexpected figure stood motionless. It was a Turkish soldier in a red fez, and embroidered sash round blue baggy breeches. Christy passed through the salon, and led the way down another corridor where Bertram was startled again by a man suddenly opening a door, looking out, and shutting it with a bang. In that brief glimpse Bertram had seen an Indian prince, as he seemed, in a high white turban, and robe of cream-coloured silk.
Further down the corridor, another door opened, and a man came right out into the passage. He wore a flannel shirt and pepper-and-salt trousers, with his braces hanging down. His feet were bare, and he was carrying a wine-bottle in one hand and a wet sponge in the other. He looked like a respectable butler in a good English household, retiring for the night. As he passed Christy, he crossed himself with the wine bottle, and squeezed a drop of water out of the sponge on to the polished boards.
“Le diable est mort!” he said, with great joyfulness.
Christy passed into another room, which was an almost exact reproduction of the Louis Quinze salon. A grand piano was open, and a young man without a collar was playing “Three Blind Mice,” with one finger.
“This way,” said Christy.
He pulled back a heavy curtain, opened a door, and led Bertram into a room which might have been a king’s study. It was panelled with oak, and furnished with oak chairs and tables, elaborately carved with Gothic decoration. A marble Venus stood on a high pedestal in the corner of the room, and on one of the tables was a bust of Napoleon. A figure of St. George and the Dragon in coloured marble inlaid with gold, was in front of the window, which looked across the river to the Kremlin.
On an enormous hearth, with iron dogs, some big logs were burning.